Page 11 of Price of Victory
“Come on, Morrison. We both know you’ve been thinking about it.”
The arrogance of it had been breathtaking. The assumption that I’d been pining away for him, that all he had to do was crook his finger, and I’d come running. Even if there had been some truth to it, his smug certainty about it made me want to punch him in his perfect face.
I’d walked away that night, but the encounter had stayed with me. The way he’d looked at me, like he could see right through all my defenses. Like he knew something about me that I didn’t want him to know.
The shower next to mine turned off, and I heard the sound of the door opening. My own shower was perfectly fine, but suddenly, the water felt too hot, the space too small. I turned off the tap and reached for my towel, wrapping it around my waist before stepping out.
Aiden was standing there completely naked, water still dripping from his hair and running down his chest in rivulets that seemed designed to torture me. He was reaching for his towel with the kind of lazy confidence that said he knew exactly what effect he was having and didn’t care who saw it.
Which brought me to the fifth time I hated Aiden Whitmore, when I was twenty and had finally worked up the courage to ask out David Reyes, this guy from my economics class who was smart and funny and had the most beautiful dark eyes I’d ever seen.
We’d gone on three dates. Three perfect dates where we’d talked about everything from hockey to books to our families,where I’d felt like I might actually be falling for someone who could see past the Morrison name to the person underneath.
And then David had mentioned, almost casually, that he’d hooked up with some guy named Aiden a few weeks before we’d started dating. Rich kid, he’d said. Great in bed but kind of an asshole. Didn’t want anything serious.
I’d known immediately who he was talking about. There was only one Aiden in our social circle who fit that description. And even though David and I had only been on three dates, even though we weren’t exclusive, the knowledge that Aiden had been there first had poisoned everything.
I’d ended things with David the next week, making up some excuse about being too busy with hockey. But the real reason was that every time I looked at him, I thought about Aiden’s hands on his skin, Aiden’s mouth on his, Aiden taking something that could have been mine.
Aiden was toweling off now, running the soft cloth over his shoulders and down his arms with movements that were somehow both efficient and sensual. His hair was slicked back from his face, and there was that damn scar on his hip that I kept noticing despite myself.
He caught me looking and smiled, and the smile said he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“See something you like, Morrison?”
I turned away and started pulling on my clothes with more force than necessary, trying not to think about the way his voice went rough and low when he was being deliberately provocative.
The sixth time I hated Aiden was last year, when I’d been home for winter break and my father had been ranting about some new acquisition Whitmore Entertainment was pursuing. They were trying to buy out one of our smaller competitors, he’d said, probably to use as a launching pad for bigger moves.
“Richard Whitmore is like a snake,” my father had said over dinner. “He slithers around in the grass until he’s close enough to strike. And when he does, he goes for the throat.”
My mother had tried to change the subject, but I’d seen the worry in her eyes. The way her hands had trembled slightly when she’d reached for her wineglass. The Morrison family had survived one attack from Whitmore Entertainment, but that didn’t mean we were safe from another.
And through it all, I’d thought about Aiden. Wondered if he knew what his father was planning. Wondered if he cared. Wondered if he saw our family as just another obstacle to be removed, just like he seemed to see me.
Aiden was getting dressed now, and of course he made that look effortless, too. His clothes were expensive. Not flashy expensive, but the quietly expensive that whispered old money and good taste. His jeans fit like they’d been tailored specifically for his body, and his sweater was probably cashmere and cost more than most people’s rent.
He ran his fingers through his damp hair, and it fell into place like he’d just stepped out of a photo shoot. It was disgusting how effortlessly beautiful he was, how he could go from naked and dripping to looking like he’d been arranged by angels in the space of ten minutes.
But it was the seventh time I hated Aiden Whitmore that really burned in my chest, the memory that made my hands shake with rage even now.
It was when my father came home from work looking like he’d aged ten years in a single day. He’d called a family meeting, something he’d never done before, and sat us down in the living room with the kind of gravity usually reserved for funerals.
“Richard Whitmore is trying to buy us out,” he’d said without preamble. “Hostile takeover. He’s been quietly acquiring sharesthrough shell companies for months, and now he’s made his move.”
The words had struck me in the belly. Our company wasn’t just a business. It was my grandfather’s legacy, my father’s life’s work, the foundation of everything our family had built. And Whitmore was trying to steal it.
The next few months had been hell. Lawyers and accountants swarming through our house at all hours, my parents whispering in hushed tones when they thought I wasn’t listening, my mother crying in the kitchen when she thought no one could see.
I’d watched my father work eighteen-hour days, calling in every favor he’d ever earned, leveraging every relationship he’d built over thirty years in the business. I’d seen my mother lose weight from stress, seen the way my parents’ marriage had strained under the pressure of possibly losing everything.
And through it all, I’d thought about Aiden. Wondered if he knew what his father was doing to my family. Wondered if he cared that his father was trying to destroy everything my grandfather had built from nothing.
We’d survived, eventually. Dad had managed to fight off the takeover, but it had cost us. Money, time, relationships, trust. The company had never been quite the same afterward, and neither had my parents.
“You’re brooding again,” Aiden said, and his voice was closer than I’d expected. I looked up to find him fully dressed and standing just a few feet away, that infuriating smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Just thinking about old times,” I said, pulling my own shirt over my head.
